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Woolsthorpe Manor, Lincolnshire

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1666 was an eventful year in England. There was a serious outbreak of bubonic plague, one of the consequences of which was to force the closure of Cambridge University. Isaac Newton, a student at Trinity College went back to his home in the tiny village of Woolsthorpe in Lincolnshire. That September a fire broke out in London which destoyed most of the City. Through all of this Newton spent his time writing and thinking, coming up with ground breaking scientific ideas. He devised a mathematical method for considering the position and speed of moving objects, known as calculus. Woolsthorpe also saw groundbreaking experiments involving the nature of light. At the time light was viewed according to Descartes' theory as a pure substance, with colours produced by modifications of pure white light. Newton shone a beam of light refracted through a prism across one of the rooms at Woolsthorpe onto an opposite wall. This gave a spectrum of oblong bands. He then worked out that colours were all part of white light, with different wavelength forming different colours refracted by the prism at different angles. All this work was done against the walls of rooms at Woolsthorpe Manor.

Most famously of all Newton is supposed to have watched ripened apples fall from a tree in Woolsthorpe Manor garden, and in a deeply meditative state, used the fall of an apple to devise the theory of gravity. Newton told this story to William Stukely in April 1726, a year before his death. In Newton's mind the apple confirmed the attraction exercised by Earth over other objects. Newton had been thinking about centrifugal force generated by spinning objects against the sides of containers they turn in. He was also thinking about the Moon spinning in its orbit around the Earth. The spin of the Moon's orbit was not made against the sides of any container, which meant that a force must be acting on the moon to stop it flying out into space. It seems that one afternoon, deep in thought, Newton saw an apple fall to Earth, and realised that gravity, whatever that might be, was the force acting to stop the moon flying away. Balanced between gravity's attraction, and centrifugal force, the moon spun in its orbit. The Woolsthorpe apple tree, which may have once carried the crucial apple, can still be seen from Newton's bedroom window.

Newton's biographer Gale Christianson has written of time at Woolsthorpe in 1666: "even as the physical world seemed to be coming apart at the seams, a secretive young natural philosopher was beginning to put it back together again in a more harmonious fashion than anyone since Pythagoras had dared dream" (Isaac Newton And His Times P91).

 

Address: Woolsthorpe Manor, Water Lane, Woolsthorpe by Colsterworth, near Grantham, Lincolnshire, NG33 5PD

Directions: Woolsthorpe by Colsterworth is just off the A1, eight miles south of Grantham.

Opening Times:

5th March to 13th March, 11am - 5pm weekends only.

16th March to 30th October, 11am - 5pm Wednesday to Sunday.

 

Access: There is a steep slope to the house, but a drop off point is available. Ramps are provided to help with steps on the lower floor, but doorways are narrow and rooms small. The second floor can only be reached by stairs. The Science Centre and refreshment facilities have level access. Grounds are only partly accessible. There are slopes and gravelled surfaces.

Contact:

telephone: 01476 860338

web site: http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-woolsthorpemanor